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Infotainment glitches prove exasperating; Consumer Reports pans new Honda Civic

By Christina Rogers 

Traditional auto makers racing against Silicon Valley firms to develop self-driving cars and electric vehicles face more immediate technological challenges with a longstanding mainstay: the dashboard screen.

Customer frustrations are mounting with infotainment systems that fail to seamlessly connect smartphones and suffer a range of glitches including crashing electronic displays and imperfect voice-recognition features, according to dealers and automobile reviewers.

The dissatisfaction come despite significant leaps auto makers have made creating systems that function more like popular hand-held electronics.

Consumer Reports magazine on Monday yanked its recommendation for Honda Motor Co.'s popular Civic compact car, in part due to owners complaining about the vehicle's in-car electronics, and its dashboard console needing replacement.

Problems with the touch screen and climate controls on the Volvo Car Corp.'s new XC90 sport-utility vehicle also plunged the Swedish luxury car maker into the bottom third of Consumer Reports' reliability rankings this year.

The influential product-review magazine has in recent years spotlighted growing problems with dashboard technology as a significant friction point for car shoppers.

When it comes to technological advances in the car cabin, car companies are "getting better and they're getting worse," said Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports' head of automotive testing. J.D. Power, another prominent car researcher, in February highlighted software for audio, navigation and voice recognition as "the most problematic area on most vehicles," adding the issues drag down dependability scores.

"We see across the board as auto makers introduce complex electronic systems, they're having more problems," Mr. Fisher said.

Honda said it continues "working diligently to enhance the usability and functionality of these in-demand technologies in our unrelenting effort to create new value for our customers."

Volvo said the XC90 has won numerous accolades from other third-party reviewers, in part because of its infotainment system, and the touch screen interface is popular with consumers, who once acclimated to it, give it high marks.

Ford Motor Co. has struggled over the years with bugs in Sync and MyFord Touch Telematics systems, with one engineer in 2011 calling software for the systems a "polished turd," according to court documents filed in a 2013 consumer lawsuit against the Dearborn, Mich., auto maker that a judge recently granted class-action status.

At one point, Chairman Bill Ford was forced to pull over to reboot the system after it crashed, and separately an engineer received a photo of broken touch screen used by Chief Executive Mark Fields, with a note saying the executive "may have been a little aggravated" with it, according to internal emails and employee interviews filed in the lawsuit.

In a statement, Ford said MyFord Touch was "revolutionary" when it launched and like "all new and complex software, continuously evolved and improved after its initial release." Customers got free software upgrades as engineers improved performance, the company said.

The challenges come as traditional car makers like Ford, General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. race to hire more software developers and programmers in an effort to keep pace in a technological arms race with Silicon Valley companies such as Tesla Motors Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google.

Tesla this month said it had installed hardware on coming vehicles that will allow them to fully drive themselves despite scrutiny stemming from a fatal crash in May involving a vehicle using its semiautonomous Autopilot system. Google continues to test fully autonomous vehicles but has been relatively tight-lipped about future plans.

On the dashboard, car shoppers are increasingly looking for rival systems from Alphabet and Apple Inc. that pair smartphones and allow motorists to view and interact with the familiar home screens in their vehicles.

Car companies are straining to keep pace with the volume and speed with which tech firms update their smartphone software, a lag that can at times confuse the car's infotainment system and cause it to crash, say analysts and service technicians.

Traditional auto makers struggle to incorporate new technology quickly, given vehicle development cycles that can take up to three years. Ford is rolling out the third iteration of its Sync system that made its debut in 2007, while Apple is on the seventh generation of its iPhone that first hit the market the same year.

What is more, customers often have to endure the hassle of visiting a dealership for software upgrades instead of over-the-air updates they have become accustomed to on smartphones.

Some car makers are starting to debut wireless connections that make updates easier. Ford said its latest version of Sync can fix software bugs, modify on-screen graphics and add new phone-pairing features such as Apple's CarPlay and Alphabet's Android Auto through Wi-Fi hot spots.

"You push the button on the iPhone and it updates in a couple minutes," said Bill Graf, a service manager for Waikem Ford in Massillon, Ohio. "They need to do that with cars. You wouldn't see half of these people in here."

Rick Kearney, a master diagnostic technician at Earl Stewart Toyota in Lake Park, Fla., said one frequent problem is phone makers update text-message capabilities, adding emojis or video that current infotainment systems don't recognize, crashing the software. Then, a customer has to bring the car into the dealership to remedy it.

"It seems as though the phones have 2020 technology and the cars are stuck in 2005," Mr. Kearney said.

Chris Rovik, Toyota's general manager for electronic systems, said the company isn't aware of such text messaging problems but it has staff in Silicon Valley that works closely with Apple and Alphabet's Android to get ahead of any major mobile-phone updates.

Write to Christina Rogers at christina.rogers@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 25, 2016 02:48 ET (06:48 GMT)

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